


pull the earth around me, make my bed

by Poke_A_Belly



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Anxiety Disorder, Depression, Gen, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Mental Health Issues, Pre-Canon, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-25
Updated: 2016-06-25
Packaged: 2018-07-14 13:34:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7173929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Poke_A_Belly/pseuds/Poke_A_Belly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He raised his fist in the air, and moved to strike it against the mirror's shiny veneer,  to see his image crack and shatter and crumble and fall to the floor in pieces.</p>
            </blockquote>





	pull the earth around me, make my bed

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Ship to Wreck by Florence and the Machine

Jack sat on the floor of his bedroom, arms cradling his knees to chest. His head, nestled on top of his arms, throbbed in time with the pounding in his chest. 

He didn't know how he got here. His vision swam with black spots, and suddenly, he remembered the burn of his protesting lungs and the ache in his chest, and he took a desperate, gasping breath. The spots disappeared, but before reality could appear before him, he shut his eyes tightly and pressed his palms to them, trying to stop the onslaught of tears. 

He failed. 

The tears escaped; first, one by one, but then, suddenly and all at once, like water gushing through a broken dam, flooding dilapidated channels. 

Like a knife to the gut, a stabbing desire roared through him. He wanted- no, he needed to make it go away; he needed for the overwhelming emotions that threatened to consume him to fade to oblivion. 

Shakily, he scrabbled his hands up the wall, and rose to his feet. He shambled unsteadily over to the bathroom. He searched for his pills. 

A cry tore through his throat, spilling over his lips like searing hot lava. Gone. They were all gone. The smoothness of the empty pill bottle taunted him mercilessly. Empty, like he wished he could be. 

He-he couldn't, he just couldn't. 

Abruptly, he had the violent urge to scratch his skin until he saw blood, to pierce his flesh with his fingernails until he could caress red crescent moons, to claw at his stomach until his guts were exposed to the surface. In lieu of the absence of emotions, he had to find a way to control them. 

The mirror in front of him twinkled invitingly. In it, his reflection stared back at him. 

He stared at himself, and saw the reflection’s lip curl upward in disgust. 

He stared at himself, and hated what he saw. 

His red, blood-shot eyes were guarded firmly by a battalion of bags. His cheeks were ruddy with exertion, and speckled with a thin film of snot that leaked steadily from his running nose. His hair, although disheveled on top, was plastered to his face from sweat. 

He stared, and met his own eyes in the mirror. Vomit skated in the back of his throat, scored goals in his stomach. 

The mirror twinkled again, and suddenly, he couldn't hold it in anymore. 

He raised his fist in the air, and moved to strike it against the mirror's shiny veneer, to see his image crack and shatter and crumble and fall to the floor in pieces. 

His hand hit the surface with a soft _whump_. The reflection didn't even waver. He hung his head in shame. Another thing he couldn't do. 

Even though he desperately wanted to, he refused to let himself take his emotions out on his body, and instead confined them to ravage an invisible trail of destruction in his mind. There, no one could see the evidence of his failures. There, he wouldn't be stopped from playing hockey. 

Another sob ripped through him at the thought, and he slumped down the bathroom wall, raising his knees to his chest to rest his head on the tops of them. 

He brought his trembling hands to his head, and laced them through his slick hair. He grasped, hard. Pain lanced satisfyingly through his skull. He smiled, faintly. 

No. He recoiled sharply, a larger wave of disgust dousing him. What was wrong with him? He had to be stronger than that; he couldn’t give into temptation. 

More panic crashed over him, and he felt like he was drowning in it, like he was below the surface and the rip tide was pulling him down and down and down until he couldn't think, couldn't breathe. 

He took a series of deep breaths, trying to calm himself. He tried to think, to remember what he had to do. He needed-he needed to refill his prescription. 

His epiphany at first filled him with conviction, but soon after left him feeling utterly drained at the thought of the daunting task. He staggered up from the bathroom floor, and collapsed onto his bed, pressing his face into the cool sheets. He tried to clear his mind and fall asleep, but flashes from the clusterfuck that was his game earlier kept bursting like bombs in his head. 

It was too close to the NHL Draft for him to not be scoring goals in games. He couldn't keep relying on his linemates, on Kent, to score the goals. 

He could still hear the questions of the ruthless reporters that surrounded him after every loss, like sharks smelling blood in the water. 

_“Jack, after tonight's performance, do you think you still have a shot at going number one in the draft?”_

_“Jack, was tonight’s performance reflective of your future in the NHL?”_

They echoed in his head, and their words twisted and morphed, until all he could hear, over and over, was a barrage of voices, snarling one after the other, _failure failure failure failure_. His coaches, his teammates, his parents, Kent. All their voices chimed in to proclaim him a disaster, a train wreck, a disappointment. He didn’t need them to tell him that. He knew it already all too well. 

A stream of warmth tricked down his chin. He licked his lips, registered the taste of blood that oozed from new, seeping puncture wounds on his bottom lip. It was metallic and salty on his tongue, ringing with notes of bitter disappointment and acrid self-hatred. He licked his lips again, this time savoring the sting that emanated from the perforated lip. 

He let his eyes drift shut, and sucked gently on his lip. The action soothed a deeply buried, visceral and primordial part of him. The repetitive motion chased away the wolves howling and prowling in the corners of his skull, and ushered in a soft haziness that settled over his mind like fog. Drifting away into unconsciousness, Jack was finally, finally safe from his thoughts. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed it, and I'd love to hear feedback! This was one of the first things I've written, so I'm a bit nervous about it. But, writing from Jack's POV is particularly cathartic for me, and I definitely hope to explore it more in the future.


End file.
